


when you move, i'm moved

by BarlowGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Agender Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Other, Vacation Home, Wingfic, it's mostly fluff, would you believe feathers actually kind of freak me out?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 10:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21506569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarlowGirl/pseuds/BarlowGirl
Summary: Crowley gets mildly injured and Aziraphale takes care of him. That's it, that's the fic. Plus there's cake!
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 191





	when you move, i'm moved

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently I go here now? Tumblr got me hooked. TV universe as I have not read the book. Title is from Hozier's Movement because every single Hozier song sounds like a Good Omens song to me now.
> 
> I know nothing about wings or birds or feathers. If you want actually good wing fic, check out Kedreeva's stuff, lol.
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://barlowstreet.tumblr.com/post/151220254193/well-theres-a-bio-under-this-read-more) if you want.

It truly was one of the most ridiculous ways for an immortal being to be injured, and Aziraphale would probably appreciate that when Crowley wasn’t bleeding.

“Oh dear,” he said and pressed a hand to Crowley’s shoulder. “Let me see.”

Crowley, much to his surprise, allowed the manhandling, letting himself be turned until Aziraphale could see the back of his wing, the snapped feather, and the blood that was steadily pouring across the dark sea of feathers beneath it.

“What happened?” he asked, and miracled up a dark green towel to press against the injury.

Crowley and the children all began speaking at once, apparently telling five different stories at the same time.

Aziraphale sighed. “Stop, stop. Pepper. Do tell me what happened?”

Of Them, she truly was the most sensible, and, he suspected, the one most likely to tell him if they’d been doing something very stupid. And he was including Crowley in that sentiment.

“Well, we were chasing Mr. Crowley,” she said, only slightly reluctantly. “He was the cryptid and we were trying to capture him. And then he tripped over one of the tree roots and sort of… fell onto a branch.”

“I see.” Aziraphale very firmly did not laugh, again only because he could feel the towel growing damp under his palm. “Well, children, I think it’s time to head home for the day.”

Adam shared a worried look amongst his friends. “Are you going to be alright?” he asked Crowley. “We didn’t mean to…”

“Absolutely peachy,” Crowley said, though he was looking rather pale and that was a very un-Crowley thing to say. “Come ‘round tomorrow if you want.”

The children got their bikes and headed home, but not without several troubled glances over their shoulders. Truly they were very kind children, Aziraphale thought with no small amount of fondness. As they headed down the road, Aziraphale moved around as best he could and pulled Crowley’s arm over his shoulders. It was an awkward stretch, but he made do.

“Come on, up we go,” he said brightly. “Inside now and we’ll get this all taken care of.”

Crowley exhaled sharply without answering, but let Aziraphale pull him to his feet.

There was a chair turned backwards waiting at the kitchen table. It was rather impossible to sit in a chair comfortably in the normal fashion when your wings were occupying physical space, Aziraphale well knew. Crowley slid into it in a manner that most would only describe as slithering, and sighed.

Aziraphale lifted the towel to examine the mess of the wing in front of him. He tsked. “You did a good number on this one. It’s going to have to come out, I’m afraid.”

Crowley folded his arms on the table and dropped his head onto them. “Shit.”

“Quite.” Aziraphale carefully wrapped his hand around the base of the broken blood feather, trying in vain to ignore the hiss of pain Crowley released when he touched it. Poor creature had to be in so much pain already. It wasn’t a primary feather, but it was still one of the larger ones. “I’ll count to three. One.”

Crowley’s shoulders tensed.

“Two.” He took a breath and yanked the feather out, which was quite possibly one of the worst feelings he’d ever experienced. It was like dislocating a limb from its socket or pulling a tooth – unnatural and vaguely sickening, even if necessary.

“ _Motherfucker,_ ” Crowley gasped.

“Three.”

“Fuck!” He shuddered, shoulders moving under Aziraphale’s hands. “You _always_ do that. Why do I still fall for it?”

Aziraphale dropped the remains of the broken feather onto the table. The skin where it’d been was raw, still bleeding sluggishly, and he couldn’t help passing a hand over it to help the healing along.

Crowley jolted. “ _Ow_ , angel. You know how much that stings!”

“Yes, but you’ll feel much better much faster.” Rolling his eyes, Aziraphale leaned down and blew a gentle breath over the now-healing wound. No angelic healing this time – just soothing the human way. “There, you’re alright.”

Crowley grumbled, but didn’t protest anymore. Nor did he protest the plaster Aziraphale miracled onto the wound. The cottage didn’t have a first aid kit, so much, and finding one to exactly fit the empty space without tugging at any of the surrounding feathers would have taken a minor miracle anyways.

And the surrounding feathers weren’t exactly in the best condition either, all tangled and sticky with blood.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Aziraphale heard himself say. When there were no protests, he came up with a soft, damp cloth. It would have been easy enough to just will the blood away, but he found himself wanting to do it the old-fashioned way.

Before the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t, he hadn’t really seen Crowley’s wings since… well, since Eden. That wasn’t something they’d shared. It was… too much, he thought. Too much like opening yourself up and letting someone see inside. The fact that he’d allowed the children to talk him into using them for their game had surprised Aziraphale in a way, but not as much as it would have once.

Truly, though, Crowley took excellent care of his wings. The few times he’s seen them in the last year had always shown them to be smooth and shiny and well groomed. Aziraphale was a little embarrassed to compare, really. His always seemed to be rather a bit of a mess. It was such a hassle to bring them out in the bookstore, and there were always so many other, better things to do that he rarely found the time.

So it was a mark to how out of sorts Crowley was that his wings were ruffled, feathers stuck together, and overall coated in a bit of dirt.

More than anything, Aziraphale did not want to cause him anymore pain. He took his time with long, smooth passes of the cloth over the dark wings, making sure it was always clean between passes, until no trace of blood or dirt remained, then gently ran his fingers through the feathers until they were settled back into place. And if he helped things dry as he did so, well, that would be his little secret. No use letting Crowley catch a chill now.

“There,” he said finally. “Right as rain.”

No response.

Aziraphale set a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, surprised as always by how delicate it felt under his hands. Truth be told, they never touched overly much, and the times they did… well. The situation was never quite like this.

“Crowley?” He squeezed the slim shoulder, not wanting to shake him.

Eventually, the demon stirred, straightening. Aziraphale took his hand away, stepping back.

“Right, well,” he said, and had no idea where to go after that.

Crowley stood up, and carefully rolled one shoulder. He made a face, but after a second his wings slipped out of the physical realm. Aziraphale felt it like the softest whisper of breath. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, dear one. Though I rather hope this doesn’t become a regular occurrence,” Aziraphale said, trying to laugh and failing. His voice came out softer than he meant it to when he continued. “You look like you could use some sleep.”

Crowley nodded, reaching towards his face. His fingers hit his sunglasses, and for a second he almost looked surprised before taking them off. He set them on the table and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. Could.”

“Might be a good idea to change as well.” Aziraphale swallowed. “There’s a great deal of blood on your clothes.”

Crowley snapped his fingers and changed into a pair of black pajamas. Then he sighed, leaned down, and pressed a soft kiss to Aziraphale’s forehead. “Good night, angel. Thanks.”

And he wandered towards the back bedroom he’d claimed for himself, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Aziraphale went to the sink, washed his hands, and performed several small, frivolous miracles without really meaning to. No fewer than three of Crowley’s plants found themselves suddenly blooming with flowers that would later have Crowley peering at them suspiciously, the burnt out streetlight across the way started working again, and the large tree in the garden acquired a tyre swing that Adam and his friends would enjoy very much.

Oh. Well, then.

That was new.

Aziraphale spent a few hours puttering around the cottage. They’d decided London was simply too hot, too muggy, and too crowded this time of year, and it was much better to spend the summer months in Tadfield, where, after all, the weather was always literally perfect.

Now to be honest he still wasn’t entirely sure how they’d ended up renting the sweet little cottage on outskirts of the town _together_ , but it’d seemed only natural as they were doing it. More efficient. There was room for Aziraphale’s bookshelves, and the desk he liked to use to repair old books, and for Crowley’s plants and his records.

So, Aziraphale had spent these last few weeks doing things that could mostly be described as “puttering”, much to his satisfaction. Truth be told, if you’d asked anyone else, they probably wouldn’t have been able to point out the difference between Aziraphale’s normal day, which probably also could largely be described as “puttering”. But, to Aziraphale, he was on vacation, and that was the important thing.

He spent time with his books, fixing some and reading many, many more, took long walks in the morning, and ate lunch with Crowley at every restaurant in and around Tadfield. And, though he wouldn’t admit it, he spent a great deal of watching Crowley, who himself seemed determined to nap on every horizontal surface of the cottage and a few outside between lunches and bouts of terrifying plants.

Anathema and Newt came over to visit often, as did Adam and his friends, and it had been quite a lovely summer.

Minus yesterday’s blood incident, of course, but things couldn’t always be perfect, could they? At least not if you weren’t the former Antichrist.

Sometime in the early morning, Aziraphale decided breakfast would be lovely, and made himself a nice cup of tea and popped two slices of bread in the toaster. And it was such nice bread, too. Tadfield had a great little bakery that made it fresh every day, all by hand! The things humans did never failed to amaze him. They could do all that with machines now, but they chose to take the time to do it without just to make something a small bit nicer.

What a beautiful world.

He buttered his toast, decided that some jam sounded delicious, and turned back to the table just in time to see Crowley leaning against the table and grabbing a slice off his plate.

“You could at least sit down,” he said primly, but his heart wasn’t in it. Crowley never ate much, and Aziraphale never minded sharing on the rare occasion he did indulge.

Crowley just winked, a small smile curving his mouth. He stared out the kitchen window at the rising sun, golden eyes reflecting the golden light. “Nice morning, eh?”

“It is indeed,” Aziraphale agreed.

“We should get a cake,” Crowley said out of the blue, and finished his pilfered toast by stealing a sip of tea from Aziraphale’s mug. “’m gonna take a shower.”

Aziraphale stared after his retreating back. What the dickens had gotten into _him_?

The strangeness only continued when Crowley got out of the shower. Now, Aziraphale didn’t spend a great deal of time monitoring Crowley’s personal grooming habits, but he himself was quite fond of both showers and the occasional bubble bath. Indoor plumbing had come a long way over the course of humanity. Grooming miracles never seemed to count as frivolous, though – Aziraphale suspected that was largely Gabriel’s doing, as he couldn’t picture him doing something as human as bathing – so skipping the boring parts like drying or styling never seemed like a big deal to Aziraphale.

He’d always assumed Crowley felt much the same way. Certainly he’d never seen him anything less than perfectly styled, barring a few instances of extreme duress. Bookshop fires and ends of the world and all that.

So, when Crowley strolled across the room and sprawled his long limbs across the couch, the sight of him made everything in Aziraphale go all… shaky.

He was wearing a pair of tight black jeans, ripped at the thighs in a way that Aziraphale wasn’t sure was deliberate or not. He _was_ sure that he was quite certain he hadn’t seen particular expanse of skin in a very long time, not since that period in the eighties when Crowley had been into mini-dresses. The shirt was not helping, either – a sleeveless black shirt with some band on it that he wasn’t familiar with, that dipped low enough that a flash of collarbone teased with each movement.

And, perhaps most surprisingly, Crowley’s hair was still wet. At best it might have been lightly tousled with a towel. He’d been growing it for a while now, and it tumbled nearly to his shoulders in a mess of loose, damp curls. He’d swept most of it to one side, revealing the long line of his neck and one bare ear, where a small silver snake earring climbed the shell.

The overall effect was somehow _undone_ in a way Aziraphale didn’t understand.

He desperately needed to do something with a book. He wasn’t sure what, but he needed something to distract him from the sight in front of him.

“Angel,” Crowley said a couple hours later, setting his mobile down on the back of the couch. His fingers tapped the case a couple times, glitter-topped black nails reflecting the soft morning light. They’d had a few arguments over a few bottles of wine whether glitter was Hell’s or Heaven’s, and pretty well decided that it was the human’s own doing. “You want to go for a stroll ‘round the town? You do that in the morning, don’t you?”

“Sometimes, yes, I do.” Aziraphale didn’t point out Crowley had yet to join him. He wasn’t sure what the demon was up to, but both a walk and the company would be nice.

“Let’s go then.”

Crowley slid on a pair of boots that seemed much too heavy for someone who claimed it was already too hot to wear any sort of jacket or sweater as he sheepishly handed Aziraphale his mobile. He’d always felt the temperature extremes more, both hot and cold. After all, he had been cold-blooded once.

Aziraphale kindly did not remind Crowley that it was his own fault women’s jeans didn’t have pockets that could fit, well, anything. Though…

“Whatever happened to that bag you had a couple years ago?”

“What, when I was nannying?” Crowley asked, surprised. “Wouldn’t exactly go with my outfit most days, would it?”

As someone who wore tartan most days of his life, Aziraphale didn’t see what was wrong with the red paisley bag Ashtoreth had always carried. As someone who wore tartan most days of his life, he also figured it was probably better to just nod.

“Plus one of Warlock’s applesauce pouches exploded in it once and it was never the same,” Crowley said, a note of sadness tingeing his voice. “It _was_ a good bag.”

A few months ago, a young girl had come into the bookstore and spent over an hour just looking at the books. When she finally came to the register, Aziraphale had asked her about her backpack, and when she wrote down the website it came from, he’d been so grateful that he’d actually sold her a book.

He’d ordered it, and immediately shoved the package into a storage closet in the back room of the bookstore when it arrived. It was perfect, honestly. Black leather with bat wings.

He’d give it to Crowley eventually, he thought. They didn’t really do too many gift-giving occasions. Maybe for Purim. He usually just gave Crowley a bottle of wine, but there was no reason he couldn’t do something different.

Speaking of different…

“You said something about cake?”

Crowley brightened. “Yes! The kids like cake, you like cake, seems like a good idea.”

He _did_ like cake, and it did, in fact, sound like a good idea.

The freckles were a bit cruel, Aziraphale decided after a few moments. They were scattered across Crowley’s shoulders, like the stars he’d made. Like the galaxies he’d spun into being. He’d made so many of them, and Aziraphale didn’t think most of their kind remembered that. They hadn’t known each other before Crowley Fell, but he talked about it a couple times, when he was very drunk. The only thing he really missed, he said.

Honestly what was wrong with him today? He was never this sentimental, or this easily distracted by some small detail of Crowley’s corporation. He’s known the demon for six thousand years – he shouldn’t be this distracted by the freckles on his shoulders.

It was going to be a long morning.

Adam and his friends showed up like they usually did, in a storm of chatter, Dog barking, and bike bells.

Aziraphale appreciated the warning.

Crowley was sprawled across one of the lawn chairs they had in the garden, looking very relaxed and also very warm. He’d lost the boots at some point, even.

Wensleydale hovered near him even as Brian and Pepper ran towards the new tyre swing. “Actually, are you alright?”

“Just fine,” Crowley replied. “Though I should probably sit today out. Think we worried some _body_ ,” he emphasized, very subtly nodding towards Aziraphale, “Rather enough yesterday, don’t you think?”

There was probably something there he should protest, Aziraphale thought. He was pretty sure he should feel insulted by something in all that, but it was really too nice of a day to worry about bickering.

“Did you fix it after we left?”

“Nah, had to pull it.”

“Has it grown back yet?” Wensleydale asked, settling into a chair near Crowley.

The demon shook his head. “Doesn’t work like that.”

Before long, Pepper and Brian drifted back towards the table, sitting wherever they pleased – grass for Brian, the porch steps for Pepper – and Crowley soon found himself occupied by their many, many questions.

Aziraphale hid a smile. Crowley had always been so good with children. He had far more patience than he probably should, and secretly enjoyed how chaotic small ones were. No good, no evil, just pure chaos.

Of course, it was at that moment Adam said his name. Speaking of chaos…

“Dog could use a walk,” Adam said. Aziraphale kindly didn’t point out that Dog had just run alongside them the whole way here. “Do you wanna come?”

“That sounds lovely, Adam.”

Behind the cottage, a perfect path meandered in a loose circuit. It hadn’t been there when they signed the lease, Aziraphale was pretty sure, not until Adam visited and decided it was necessary for bike races and Dog walking and other very important things. It was just the right length for a good walk, and just the right balance of sunny and shaded.

They’d made it a decent way down the path before Adam shot a look at Aziraphale.

“I’ve never seen that much blood before. Pepper fell off the climbing frame at school three years ago and broke her arm, but it didn’t bleed like that.”

“Oh, I suppose not,” Aziraphale mused. “Bloodfeathers are well and truly filled with the stuff, and they become sort of… a hollow tube, when they’re broken. It’s more dramatic than anything, really. But it’s quite alright now.”

Adam nodded. “Good. So Mr. Crowley… wait, is it Mr. still?”

He really was a perceptive child, Aziraphale thought. Gender was a very human construct. Aziraphale wasn’t particularly attached to it himself. He liked his body the way it was and the clothes he wore, and he was fine with being called “he” and “him” and if others chose to call him a man, but generally it all didn’t seem worth the fuss.

Crowley, meanwhile, had embraced human genders like he’d embraced almost everything else human – passionately and wholeheartedly. He’d tried most of them at some point or another, and was never more delighted than when humans came up with new terms for them.

“They’re so clever with the words,” Crowley had said. E took a long drink of wine, grinning at Aziraphale from across the room. Eir glasses had disappeared, as they only did back then when e was rather drunk. “Genderqueer, how do you like that? It’s new.”

Aziraphale had seen Crowley settle into that one, how it fit like a familiar coat. He’d seen the freedom it’d created for Crowley, and thought about other humans finding that freedom, and thought, yes, they had come up with something good this time.

“No,” he said to Adam now. Crowley wasn’t using different pronouns yet – Aziraphale always knew, but even for others, it was always easy to tell, as you’d go to say the ones you’d been previously using and find yourself tripping over them, with an off taste in your mouth – but the idea of Crowley as “male” felt distinctly fuzzy around the edges. “That doesn’t seem to fit right now, does it?”

“Nah,” Adam said easily. “Uh. What do we call him then?”

“I think you all could call him Crowley. Or Anthony, if it feels right. He chose both of those, you know.”

“Good, then.” Adam exhales in a loud rush, looking rather relieved. He confessed, “I’m not sure yet when it’s okay to ask, honestly. Anathema and I have been talking about this kind of thing, and I asked if she had any magazines about it, and she turned really red and said not any that I was old enough to read, but she’d order some books for me.”

“More complicated with humans as well, I suspect,” Aziraphale said. “Crowley wouldn’t mind you asking. He’d know you weren’t being cruel about it.”

They were nearing the cottage again, and Aziraphale was feeling rather proud of himself. Conversations with Warlock as Brother Francis had been more along the lines of loving all creatures than the complexities of gender identity, but he had been pretty good at it, if he did say so himself. This was a completely different situation, but it had gone well.

“So do you say like partner instead of husband or something?” Adam asked.

Aziraphale tripped over a rock. Only a very quick and very small and slightly desperate miracle saved him from faceplanting in the dirt. “Adam, we’re not married.”

The boy gave him a very unimpressed look. “You’ve been together literally forever, right? You’re like Jenny Thomas’ parents. They’ve been together since they were like practically our age, even though they’re not married. It’s basically the same. Just less paperwork, her mum says.”

Aziraphale found his knees suddenly very wobbly and then found himself sitting on a wooden bench under the shade of a nearby tree. The bench had definitely not been there a minute ago, and the tree was iffy.

“Crowley’s not my… spouse,” he said faintly.

Adam sat on the bench next to him, bending to rub between Dog’s ears. “Why not? You love him.”

“I love everyone.”

“Not like _that,_ ” Adam said. “You get all mushy like Newt and Anathema. And I don’t get why _they_ don’t get married, either.”

“Don’t you rush them,” Aziraphale said quickly. “That’s their decision to make in their own time.”

“But they both want to. Anathema gets all these magazines now that have, like, wedding dresses and stuff and then she gets all embarrassed about them and hides them away.”

Young love was so sweet, Aziraphale thought. He knew young Mr. Pulsifer was not going to propose. Oh he wanted to, alright. He’d showed up on their doorstop one evening, and proceeded to drink a very large amount of their good wine – okay, their decent wine. He wasn’t exactly drinking it for the taste. And he’d lain on their living room floor, and lamented about how he very much wanted to marry Anathema, but Agnes had predicted it, and oh, he didn’t want Anathema to feel as though she had no choice but to agree just because it had been prophesized.

“Let her propose,” Crowley had said finally, a few glasses into a much better wine. “It’d be her choice that way. Free will and all that.”

“Huh,” Newt said, and passed out on the carpet.

“I think you’re going to have to tempt them with that a few more times for it to stick,” Aziraphale had said with a smile.

“They’ll get there,” he assured Adam now. “Let them have their time with this.”

The boy sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “I know, I know, I’ll feel like that when I get older.”

“Oh goodness, I would never tell you that,” Aziraphale said in surprise. “No one is obligated to have romantic feelings, and not everyone does. You are allowed to love the world and the people in it however feels right to you.”

Something about that seemed to ease a great burden from Adam’s mind. He smiled, all twelve and gangly and sweet and mischievous and so very human all at the same time again. Just as he should be.

“You should propose to Crowley, then, while we’re waiting for Newt and Anathema. You’re old. You’ve had loads of time.” Adam jumped to his feet. “C’mon, Dog, I’ll race you back to the cabin!”

Aziraphale had the distinct feeling he’d been unintentionally insulted. He still hadn’t quite decided if he should be offended by the time he reached the cabin, but as soon as he arrived, Crowley was suggesting they get out the cake and he didn’t have time to worry about it anymore.

The afternoon was rather perfect. Aziraphale spent it reading on the swing in the shade of the porch, while Crowley and the children played round after round of board games. He interfered once to open the large umbrella over the table, so the kids didn’t get too much sun, but angled it so Crowley could continue his sunbathing. Or basking, perhaps, was more apt.

The demon smiled, raising his glass of lemonade. “Cheers, angel.”

Aziraphale went back to his swing, trying and failing to pretend he wasn’t blushing.

It was a hot and lazy afternoon, one of those ones that seems to last forever, and ends only when you’re pleasantly wrung out and ready for a cool shower and a soft bed.

Crowley had been asleep for a good hour by the time the children made their leave. Adam made some very expressive faces at Aziraphale that likely were meant to communicate _Things_ , but Aziraphale firmly refused to allow himself to understand. Overall, though, they’d had a very pleasant afternoon, and each child was thinking about how nice it would be to go home and have dinner with their family.

And with that, as so often was the case, it was just the two of them.

He supposed it was near time to wake Crowley. Seemed almost a shame when he looked so comfortable. One arm was slung across his eyes, sunglasses dangling loosely from his fingers.

Aziraphale reached out to – shake Crowley awake? Maybe? – but found himself lightly running the back of a finger down Crowley’s forearm. It seemed he was too soft to bring himself to jar the sleeping demon awake.

Crowley stirred slowly, eyes blinking open sleepily. “Aziraphale…” He glanced around, a bit of confusion still on his face. “Kids get going alright?”

“Yes, they all headed home not too long ago.”

Crowley nodded. He yawned, stretched, and pointed at the chair next to him. “Come here, sit for a minute.”

Aziraphale hesitated but dropped into it. “You should probably get out of the sun.”

With a lazy wave, Crowley moved the umbrella to shade them. He set his sunglasses on the table and settled back into a lounge in his chair. “Happy?”

He was being sarcastic, Aziraphale knew, which was nothing new between them. Crowley always had to be a little sarcastic when he did something nice, even now. It was almost more habit than anything, he suspected.

For some reason, though, he found himself being much more honest than he’d usually be.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “I have found myself very happy here. This summer.”

Crowley turned an assessing gaze on him. “You going soft on me, angel?”

Aziraphale gave a small laugh. “I suppose I’ve always been rather soft.”

After a moment, Crowley shrugged. “Better soft than the alternative,” he said, gesturing vaguely towards the sky.

“Quite.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a short period, until Crowley sat up. “Suppose we should get you inside before you get heatstroke in that outfit.”

Aziraphale looked down at himself. “This is what I always wear.”

“That’s my point!”

It was cool inside, and the evening breeze began to come softly through the windows. A fine evening indeed, and there was an easy mutual agreement to open a bottle of wine. Crowley had acquired a very nice white wine, slightly sweet, the perfect sort of thing for a night like this. Aziraphale busied himself opening it with the corkscrew that had been in the basket of housewarming gifts Newt and Anathema had given them. True, he could have miracled the bottle open, but it had been such a thoughtful gift.

Much to his surprise, Crowley had been equally busy while he was pouring the wine. He’d put together a platter of grapes, cheese, crackers, and more that Aziraphale hadn’t even realized they’d had.

“Did you go shopping?” he asked in surprise.

“I’ve been known to. C’mon.”

Crowley carried the platter into the living room, setting it down on the coffee table before sprawling across one end of the couch. His fingers were wrapped carelessly around the wineglass, casual as he watched Aziraphale settle on the other end.

“Well, this is truly lovely,” he said, helping himself to a grape. “Thank you.”

Crowley toasted him wordlessly.

This was familiar. Different setting, but Aziraphale enjoying a meal while Crowley watched him eat was nothing new. He could occasionally, well, tempt Crowley into trying something new, and Somebody help you if you got in the way when Crowley had an actual craving, but food had never been a big one of his indulgences. Aziraphale figured he made it up for the both of them.

No, this wasn’t new territory.

“Adam thinks we should get married.”

Crowley dropped his wineglass. “ _Shit_.”

“Oh dear.” Aziraphale snapped his fingers, putting the glass back together – but on the coffee table.

He didn’t want to be distracted from this moment. Crowley’s face was too fascinating to look away from, as it worked through a good half dozen expressions in the space of about a minute. It was quite amusing to completely throw him like this.

Then he patted at his side, where the pocket of his jacket would normally be, and glanced around vaguely.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Oh, I do believe I left my book outside. I best go get it, in case it rains tonight.”

In truth, he hadn’t forgotten it. When he got outside, he actually had to miracle it outside just so he could bring it in. But Crowley had seemed to need a moment, and, perhaps, the sunglasses Aziraphale brought inside with him, setting both book and glasses on the coffee table casually when he came back in.

Crowley immediately put them on, and seemed to relax just the smallest bit.

When humans had invented tinted glasses, Aziraphale had been a little sad to not be able to see Crowley’s eyes all the time. Of course, he’d quickly buried those feelings, telling himself some excuse about how it was easier to tell when he was lying or some such nonsense. Like it wasn’t transparently obvious when Crowley was lying. For a demon, he really had no poker face.

Instead, it was the feeling of another barrier between them that bothered him, for the longest time. Until, rather incredibly recently, he’d realized how much Crowley hid behind them – how much they were his last line of defence, and how vulnerable he was without them. And, so, he cherished instead the moments where Crowley felt open enough, safe enough, to be without them.

Those moments came more and more, these days, and since the Apocawasn’t, didn’t even always require a few glasses of wine first. He found himself incredibly grateful for that, and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it.

Aziraphale took a sip of his wine. “It’s sort of amusing, really. At first Adam seemed convinced we were already married.”

Rather to his amusement, Crowley seemed unable to get any actual words out, and managed only a vague, “Ngk.”

“Or at the very least, we were as close as you get to married without paperwork.”

Huh. He’d never actually seen Crowley’s neck get that red.

“Mgh.” Crowley swallowed, nodded very quickly, and leaned forward to grab his wineglass. His knuckles went white around the stem this time, and he took a very long drink from it. “Did he,” he finally got out.

Oh, Aziraphale thought, oh, it was time for him to be brave, for once. He set his glass on the table, turned to face Crowley, and took the glass from his suddenly slack fingers as well. Crowley had gone very still, and made the softest noise of surprise when Aziraphale took his hand in both of his.

“Crowley,” he said, taking a deep breath.

Crowley pulled his glasses off and dropped them carelessly on the carpet.

“I just feel I need to tell you – oh dear, I’m not very good at this.” He laughed nervously at himself, gently stroking his thumb over the soft, cool skin of Crowley’s knuckles. “But I’ve realized that I want you to know how deeply I care for you. You’re my oldest and dearest friend. And I just want to tell you that, well, you don’t go too fast for me, anymore.”

“Oh,” he said, and blinked several times. “Okay.”

Okay did not seem like quite the reaction for this situation, and Aziraphale started to frown.

“Okay, yeah, sure, let’s get married,” Crowley blurted, darted forward, and kissed him.

Never mind. He was perfectly fine with okay.


End file.
